COLUMBUS, Ohio (AP) — Gov. Mike DeWine on Thursday was expected to highlight the one-year anniversary of
coronavirus shutdowns starting in Ohio.
One of the Republican governor’s first actions happened this week in March 2020 when he laid down strict
attendance limits on the annual Arnold Sports Festival in Columbus, a giant sports festival that
typically attracts 20,000 athletes from 80 countries as well as thousands of spectators.
"That was really, at least for me, the beginning of the pandemic," DeWine said earlier this
week.
Nine days later, DeWine ordered schools closed for three weeks, an order that ultimately ended in-person
learning for many districts for nearly a year.
The 7-day rolling average of daily new cases in Ohio did not increase over the past two weeks, going from
2,353.71 new cases per day on Feb. 17 to 1,801.43 new cases per day on March 3, according to an
Associated Press analysis of data provided by The COVID Tracking Project.
More than 1.7 million people in Ohio have received at least one shot of the vaccine, or about 15% of the
population as of Wednesday, according to the state Health Department. More than 930,000 have completed
their vaccinations, or about 8% of the population.